All men can see these tactics whereby
I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy
out of which victory is evolved.
(Sun Tzu)

It is surprising and dismaying that
the world's only superpower does not have a
unified political-military strategy and a
multidimensional inter-agencyorganizational structure to confront
Chavez's challenge. It is time to make substantive
changes to deal better with irregular contemporary
conflict.
(Max G. Manwaring)

In a previous
article
we showed the relation that exists between the US Defense Department's
most recent war doctrines and the 'Theory of the New Wars', an
ideological construction originating from the realm of European
academia developed at the beginning of the new millennium, which is
nothing else but the 'moral' justification of the aggression wars and
countless interferences all over the world of the European and North
American ruling classes, in pursuit of their respective geo-strategic
interests and global expansion. All the military doctrines, security
strategies and political ideologies emanating from the global power
centers have a common denominator: they are fully inscribed in the
justification and defense of an economic, political and social order
that is unsustainable and unjustifiable and the continuance of which,
over time, has turned into a human security and survival problem on a
planetary scale: capitalism. In order to justify the unjustifiable, we
see the recycling and massive dissemination of myths that are
profoundly rooted in the minds of millions of people who have been
victims, since centuries, of mind control which adopts the most
variegated forms. The main message that has been transmitted through
these myths, especially in the past two decades, is to equate
capitalism with the highest possible degree of human civilization,
rejecting any search for an alternative as 'obsolete', 'anachronistic'
and 'pre-modern'.

Who wants to break away from the
established parameters and dares to
take different ways than those prescribed by capitalist globalization
has to confront an avalanche of obstacles, threats, covert and overt
interventions as well as campaigns of defamation and ridicule. Any
country or group of countries that does not stick to the rules and
interferes with the interests of the global power centers, will be
subjected to destabilization operations and is then declared a 'failed
State' or 'crisis region' that merits military invasion in the name of
the 'security' of the 'international democratic community' (the West). Given this background it is
troublesome to see how an encirclement is
closing down on Venezuela and also on the countries that constitute the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a proposal
for Latin American integration which does not respond to the interests
of big international capital. We are witnessing at this moment how the
first step of an escalation is being executed that may well lead to an
eventual military confrontation between the US-Colombian armed forces
and those of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as other
countries of our region. It is sufficient to take a look at the
strategic locations of the seven North American military bases that
will be set up shortly on Colombian territory and at the full spectrum
of marine, air force, army and special forces components which will
operate from there, so as to realize that the projection of US military
force from Colombia exceeds by far the supposed 'war against drugs' and
clearly points towards control and vigilance of the whole of South
America. Given that Colombia shamefully and literally is transforming
itself into a US aircraft carrier for operations in Latin America,
within short notice we will directly share boundaries with a nation the
governments of which we can qualify, without hesitation, as the most
interventionist and criminal of the world. (In the words of George H.W.
Bush: If the North American people knew what we have done, they would
string us up from the lamp posts.) The reasons for the deployment of US
military forces on Colombian territory constitute a kind of
layered
rings of lies. The 'official' reason, the 'war against drugs', makes
for the necessary background from which the destabilization operations
against Venezuela and the ALBA countries will be staged, whereas the
unofficial reason is expressed in the US military's 'strategic
studies', in itself a set of clever distortions to justify the one and
only REAL reason: the open military defense of North American interests
and of the continuity of the rules of the game of globalization in the
region.

In one of these strategic studies
concerning US security and defense
matters in Latin America, entitled: 'Latin America's New Security
Reality: Irregular Assymetric Conflict and Hugo Cha'vez'(1), Max G.
Manwaring, professor for Military Strategy at the U.S. Army War
College, presents president Cha'vez of Venezuela as an individual
'possessed' by Simon BolĂvar's dream, pushing forward an agenda of open
confrontation with the objective to conquer revolutionary power in the
whole region, reason for which he is considered to be a national
security threat to North America. The writing, published in August
2007, is a follow-up and deepening of an earlier study by the same
author from the year 2005, entitled: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez,
Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare, made public in Venezuela
at the time by Eva Golinger.(2) The reading is sobering and gives us an
idea of what will expect us if we do not prepare a timely response that
goes beyond some mere declarations of protest on paper.

In his second writing about the
alleged threat posed by Cha'vez,
Manwaring, in line with the Theory of the New Wars and as if he wanted
to discard from the beginning any doubts about the peaceful and
defensive character of the United States of America, introduces his
study with the categorical assertion that "war no longer exists".(3)
Precising this assertion and citing the British military strategist
General Rupert Smith from his writing: 'The Utility of Force: The Art
of War in the Modern World', the author tells us that war as a
confrontation between Nation States conceived of as a massive military
event which decides over international disputes, has disappeared from
the scene and has been replaced by 'wars among peoples' that involve a
kind of combatants who are not necessarily soldiers or armies. (4)

Going into the detailed description
of what he calls the 'hard facts'
of this 'new paradigm of war', Manwaring points out that today's'
combatants, rather than armies, tend to be "small groups of armed
soldiers who are not necessarily uniformed, not necessarily all male
but also female, and not necessarily all adults but also children."(5)
Implicit in this statement lies a kind of 'technical-tactical'
justification for the indiscriminate assassination of civilians as
effectively has happened in the first two aggression wars of the 21st
Century, undertaken by the government of the United States of America
against Afghanistan and Iraq, in which civilians have been and continue
to be massacred indiscriminately, with total impunity and on a large
scale in a manner that is reminiscent of an expedition of collective
punishment. The second 'hard fact' of this new paradigm according to
Manwaring/Smith postulates that these small groups of combatants "tend
to be interspersed among ordinary people and have no permanent
locations and no identity to differentiate them clearly from the rest
of a given civil population". (6) Implicit in this second 'hard fact'
lies the technical-tactical justification of the deliberate and
indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure like schools,
hospitals, water reservoirs, electricity plants, and even centers of
religious gatherings and densely populated poor quarters, as has
effectively happened in the same aggression wars we just mentioned.

In addition, the author points out
that contemporary conflict is being
conducted on four interrelated levels, in a hierarchic top-down
structure from the political, strategic, operational to the tactical
level, what seems at first sight no different from the classical
definition of war by Von Clausewitz according to which war is the
continuation of politics by other means. However, and according to
Manwaring/Smith, "contemporary conflict is now lengthy and evolves
through two or three or more noncoercive organizational stages before
serious coercion and confrontation come into play", being the military
operations "only one of the many instruments of power employed by the
combatants" (7). To "evolve through two or three or more noncoercive
organizational stages" before entering direct confrontation could be
translated, in the language of the now extinct international law, as a
crime against peace, as is the planning, preparation and carrying out
of an aggression war, such as the government of the United States has
waged against Afghanistan and Iraq under the pretext of the 'war
against terrorism', bidding farewell to international law and laying
down the de-facto basis for the club-law or "New Wars" of the 21st
Century. Certainly and in our latitudes, the recent coup in Honduras,
followed by the agreement of the Colombian and North American
governments on facilitating the use of seven military bases for the US
on Colombian territory, in addition to the uncountable acts of open
provocation against the governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela
in the past months and years, give the impression that we are
witnessing "two or three or more noncoercive organizational stages"
before the government of the United States, in alliance with the
Colombian ruling class and other ruling elites in the region that may
offer themselves for the purpose, passes on to direct military
confrontation with one or more of our Latin American countries.

Then, Manwaring proceeds to point out
the 'transnational character' of
modern conflict in which combatants hide in border regions and other
countries' territories from where they stage their operations (which
turns out to be quite a convenient 'hard fact' if, from one of the
global power centers like the United States or Europe, one plays the
card of destabilization and intervention of a nation or region). The
author concludes the review of the essential elements of the new
paradigm of war with the observation that the major military and
nonmilitary battles in modern conflict take place among the people and
if reported, become media events that may or may not reflect the
reality on the ground. Here, of course, one cannot but think of the
dictatorship of the international media that works hand in hand with
the US military-industrial complex and sells us information that serves
their strategical objectives. Finally, the author emphasizes that all
means employed in this kind of conflict are "intended to capture the
imaginations of the people and the will of their leaders, thereby
winning a trial of moral (not military) strength" and that "the
struggle is total, in that it gives the winner absolute power to
control or replace an entire existing government or other symbol of
power". (8) Apart from the concept and practice of 'regime change'
pushed forward by the government of the United States where it deems it
necessary, and its battle to "win hearts and minds", what comes to mind
here is the concept and practice of the 'de-territorialization' of war,
which, according to the Theory of the New Wars and its postulate of
'military humanism', bestows on the 'civilized nations' (United States
and Europe) not only the self-proclaimed 'right', but even the
obligation to intervene in conflict zones 'for the sake of their
populations' and 'in the name of human rights', concept that goes hand
in hand with that of a 'limited sovereignty' and of 'military export of
stability'.

After enumerating the 'hard facts' we
just mentioned and commented, as
essential characteristics of the new paradigm of war according to a
writing of British general Rupert Smith, Manwaring, in a sudden and
grotesque twist, ascribes these to president Hugo Cha'vez as if he were
the intellectual author of this paradigm, besides other doctrines of
war:

"These are the principal
characteristics of what President Hugo
Chavez of Venezuela now calls "4th Generation War" (4GW), "Asymmetric
War," "Guerra de todo el pueblo ("War of all the People," "People's
War," or "War Among Peoples"). President Chavez asserts that this type
of conflict has virtually unlimited possibilities for a "Super
Insurgency" against the United States in the 21st century. It appears
that Chavez's revolutionary (Bolivarian) ideas are developing and
maturing, and that he and Venezuela, at a minimum, are developing the
conceptual and physical capabilities to challenge the status quo in the
Americas. This challenge is straightforward and is being translated
into a constant, subtle, ambiguous struggle for power that is beginning
to insinuate itself into political life in much of the Western
Hemisphere." (9)

This maneuver clearly reveals the
political-ideological,
strategic-military background of the matrix of public opinion generated
on a global scale with the complicity of the dictatorship of the
international media, to justify an eventual aggression war against the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, matrix that has already been
successfully tested in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq: To present the
country or government who will be attacked as the aggressor, according
to an old technique called Big Lie Strategy, a term coined by Adolf
Hitler in his autobiography, "Mein Kampf" (1925). The term refers to a
lie of such proportions that nobody ever would suspect that anyone
could be so imprudent as to distort the truth in such an infamous
manner:

"[...]in the big
lie there is always a certain force of
credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more
easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than
consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of
their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the
small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little
matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It
would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and
they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort
the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be
so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and
waver and will continue to think that there may be some other
explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind
it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all
expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art
of lying." (10)

Considering the countless assaults
against other governments and
peoples of this world by the governments of the United States in the
past and present, it is troublesome when a North American military
strategist from the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War
College asserts that president Cha'vez is "encouraging his Venezuelan
and other followers to pursue a confrontational, populist, and
nationalistic agenda" by means of implementing a "totalitarian
democracy" (in reference to the direct, participatory and protagonist
democracy or 'government of, by and for the people' as proposed by
Lincoln), and accuses Cha'vez of wanting to destroy North American
hegemony by means of conducting an irregular Fourth-Generation War
"Super Insurgency". (11) Such an assertion announces bad things to
come.

We don't want to conclude our
observations without mentioning some
other pieces of lie and propaganda like that of Ray Walser, Heritage
Foundation's political analyst for Latin America (12) who, in his "Four
concerns about Venezuelan president Hugo Cha'vez", holds that the
latter, first, provides material assistance and sanctuary to the FARC,
second, allows individuals operating for Hezbollah to work under
Venezuelan diplomatic cover, third, hinders anti-drug efforts in the
region and fourth, denies democratic opportunity to the opposition and
opposes democratic government,(13), lies that Walser recycles in his
articles. Not to mention the notorious Otto Reich, who recently shot
his ammunition from the pages of the Foreign Policy Magazine, in a
master piece of distortion and bellicose propaganda, entitled:
'Cha'vez's Covert War: Obama needs to call Venezuela's president what he
is: a terrorist and a drug-trafficker', and in which Reich details what
the title promises: infamous falsehoods. In this piece of provocation,
Reich portrays president Cha'vez as a coward who only points his guns at
his own, defenseless citizens and who does not have the guts to fight
openly in the international arena:

"Cha'vez has only ever pointed his
guns at defenseless Venezuelan
civilians. Bullies like him do not forewarn their intended victims. He
does not fight openly, preferring to intervene covertly -- either
directly or through his regional "anti-imperialist" alliance, the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a collection of the
highest-decibel, lowest performing leaders in the region, from
countries including Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and, until June,
Honduras." (14)

This is what best illustrates the
objective of this co-ordinated
avalanche of propaganda and provocation that has been flowing from the
pens of military strategists, political analysts, ex State officials,
columnists and journalists, all inscribed in the Big Lie Strategy. It
therefore is imperative for us to study, know and debate this kind of
propaganda, its historical precedents, its current context, the
mental
configuration of its promoters and its effects on the population in
order to counter it effectively.

I, Franz John Tennyson Lee, was born in Ficksburg in 1938. I am a South African then classified as "Coloured" by the racist legislation of my home country. Since 1962, having acquired a scholarship to study overseas, I have been living in the (more...)